[T]he IUC passed a resolution on Oct. 11 confirming the following truisms: “Ohio’s four-year public universities are committed to valuing and respecting diversity of ideas, including respect for diverse political viewpoints. Neither students nor faculty should be evaluated on the basis of their political opinions.”

Except that not all “political opinions” are made equal, especially since modern conservatism has become synonymous with intolerance: it is anti-intellectual, counter-scientific, socially inept, recklessly interventionist and fiscally extravagant—even as it still defends discrimination against blacks, women and homosexuals.

College helps folks un-learn these toxic beliefs. It doesn’t teach that they’re of equal value to tolerance itself.

The liberal viewpoint is something to be defended, not compromised, which is probably why today’s conservatives feel so out of place on America’s college campuses.

Pennington really came out and said that conservatives are so nasty and evil that they ought not to be granted freedom of speech. Why? Because the purpose of going to college is to “un-learn these toxic beliefs.”

Unfortunately, what Pennington is saying here seems to be what many people on campus think but will not admit: that some ideas (the ones with which they disagree, of course) are so dangerous that they can’t be tolerated. The corollary of this, naturally, is that the mission of a university is not to be a marketplace of ideas, but rather to instill in its students a certain mentality.

Answer: none, obviously, because you have surrendered the moral high ground in favor of political expediency. Which would be a laughable notion if so many of our universities (as shown by FIRE’s caseload) hadn’t already done just that.